Mellotronists

More anecdotes...

The smoke in the foyer was reminiscent of the old days for me, but my wife
was absolutely nauseated by it. Everytime we wanted to leave our seats we
poked our heads into the foyer, and when we could see a path to the door we
made a break for it!

Franco's guitars went from LAX to Mexico City on Saturday - as of soundcheck
they had not yet arrived via courier to Mexicali. He would not play without
them. A little drama for the morning, there always has to be some drama,
right?

It's hard for me to dis Par Lindh - we made friends with him at UCLA in '93
when he was travelling with of that amazing bunch of young kids from Sweden
(Anglagard) and played the pipe organ during their set at Royce Hall. And
I've had his CD "Gothic" in the CD player of my truck for a couple of
months, in my characteristic "too lazy to put another one in" manner.
Whenever I do that, whatever it is will grow on me, and that is pretty much
what he played that day. If it's something that I'm familiar with, I usually
enjoy myself. I did crack a pretty good joke with David Overstreet and Greg
Walker while we were sitting in our seats watching soundcheck and PLP was
rehearsing "Night on Bald Mountain"... I said, "oh yeah, this is the
Fireballet cover band". Funny thing is, after we stopped laughing, we though
that a Fireballet cover band would be a cool thing! :)

I was able to see the good in each of the bands. I kind of shy away from the
"trolls and wizards sitting on giant mushrooms whilst playing lutes" image
of the progressive genre, and I'm not really impressed with random
vibra-slaps and chime trees, but I try to see through such things and
appreciate the musicianship. I get the most enjoyment from the
been-playing-for-30-years old farts, especially the Italian ones for some
reason. In the last 10 years I've had so many "pipe dreams" fulfilled, and
got to participate as well! Somebody pinch me.

We all got a kick out of Amarok's "human flute". Started all kinds of
comments. Better not go there.... :)

The last two days we did not see the hotel bands at all, unfortunately. We
spent all our time at soundcheck with the headliners, fortunately. Hopefully
the hotel bar is a stepping stone for next year, like it was for Cabezas de
Cera who played at the hotel last year and the theater this year. I heard
more than a few people say that PFM was the best, and these guys were next!
They were very very hot.

Alfonso very much would like to add a Mellotron to his collection - any
leads out there? He said $2500-$3500 would be something he could do.

- Gene

M400S #1023
M400S #1213
M400S #1289
<all of which I am keeping in case Anglagard comes back to LA!>
<hi Mattias!>

-----Original Message-----
From: sdavmor [mailto:sdavmor@...]
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 12:29 AM
To: mellotronists@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Mellotronists] Baja Prog storytime!


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